He Loves Lucy

by Susan Donovan

  Theo laughed.

  “So, thank you.”

  Theo was speechless. What he wanted to do was pull her into his lap and hold her and kiss her until they both couldn’t breathe. But the signals she was giving off today made him rethink that plan.

  “Then thank you, too,” he said.

  “No sweat. I know the money’s going to help with med school.”

  Theo took a deep breath, moved his chair closer to hers, and sat down again. “When my parents died, they left their investments and cash assets in a trust fund for Buddy and they left the house and all their belongings to me. They were paying for part of my med school, and I was taking the rest out in loans, which I’ll be paying back for many years.”

  Lucy nodded.

  “I can’t touch a dime of Buddy’s money. People with Down syndrome are living very long lives now, but often with medical complications as they get older. I have no idea what he’ll need in his life, or when he’ll need it. That money is not mine.”

  Lucy frowned. “So what you’re saying is that every pound I lose is a thousand dollars straight into your med school tuition?”

  ‘That’s a no-frills way to put it.“

  “Yikes. I really shouldn’t have eaten that pecan pie.”

  Theo laughed. “You said it was only half a pie.”

  After a moment of quiet, Lucy cocked her head and smiled at him. “I’ve never asked you-what kind of doctor do you want to be, Theo?”

  “A physiatrist.”

  “Do you mean a psychiatrist?”

  Theo shook his head. “No, Cunningham. I know the kind of doctor I want to be, and the word is physiatrist-physical medicine in a hospital setting, postsurgery rehab, mostly.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “After med school there’s a four-year residency and a one-year fellowship. At best, it’ll be seven years until I’m done. I won’t be out of training until I’m thirty-nine-old and gray.”

  “Hardly.” Lucy smiled at him again.

  “What I’m saying is that your dream is my dream, Luce. That’s the way it works for us.”

  Lucy fiddled with her coffee cup. “I can’t wait to break away from psycho Stephan and start my own company, you know? I want the challenge of making my own decisions. I want the chance to thrive or dive on my own.”

  “You’ll be getting that chance soon.”

  Theo and Lucy sat for a long moment, looking into each other’s eyes. Theo reached for her hand.

  “Buddy is my hero. Did I ever tell you that?”

  “No,” Lucy said.

  “Yeah. God gave him a whopping disadvantage, but he’s always made the absolute most of his gifts. I see being a doctor as my way of doing that.”

  “OK.”

  “You’re the exact opposite of Buddy. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  She looked surprised. “Not really.”

  “You’ve got everything, Lucy. Brains. Beauty. Wit. Determination. A good heart. And I can’t tell you how cool it is to see you claim it all.”

  She laughed, but it was a little sob of a laugh and it was clear the tears weren’t going to stop this time.

  “I’ll get those tissues now.”

  “Maybe that’s a good idea.”

  Theo returned with an entire box, which made Lucy giggle.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy, Lucy. I wish things were different, but this is how it is. I can only ask for your patience.”

  She blew her nose and nodded. “Patience is not my best virtue.”

  “C’mere, Luce.”

  He pulled her onto his lap and held her tight. Lucy put her arms around him and hugged him back, a hug full of affection and connection, and he felt the power of it-all the way down to his shoes.

  The timbre of the embrace changed slowly. Lucy curled into him, relaxed against Theo’s body. He held her softly, feeling her breathe, drawing her scent into him, reveling in the deep satisfaction he felt just having this woman in his arms.

  “I really want to do this, Theo.”

  “Hug me?”

  “That, too.” Lucy pulled back to look down into his face. “But I was referring to my goal. I want to succeed.”

  “I know you do.” Theo grabbed a tissue and wiped away a smear of mascara on her cheek. “Maybe what we need is some serious-assed motivation. Are you with me?”

  Her eyes widened. “Sure.”

  “Our challenge is another thirty-two pounds in twenty-one weeks. It’s doable, but it’s going to be tough. So pick something-something big and juicy and decadent-as your reward when you reach your goal.”

  “I’m assuming Milk Duds are out.”

  “They are.”

  “Starting my own company, then.”

  “Nope. Can’t be work-related. It’s gotta be a splurge. An adventure. Something you’ve always wanted. Something you can’t wait to do.”

  He could almost see the synapses fire behind the bright light of her eyes. “All right,” she whispered. “I want to go to bed with you again.”

  Theo thought he would fall out of the chair. “Uh…” He ran a hand through his hair. “Not a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t think I can wait five months to make wild love to you again. I’m not sure I can wait five minutes. What else you got?”

  She smiled and looked off into the yard in thought for a minute. “I know!” Her face shone with delight. “How about I arrange to go somewhere exotic where I can be pampered head to toe? I’m talking total sensory overload, Theo.”

  “Go on. This is good.” His hand slid up her back, then caressed her between her shoulder blades.

  “I want to loll around in abject luxury at some island resort, where a whole team of people tends to my every desire.”

  Theo’s hand strayed down to her lower back, where he spread his fingers wide and pressed in. “Excellent. Maybe Fran could go with you.”

  “That would be fun. Don’t stop touching me.”

  Theo let his hand slide down to Lucy’s ass, packed tight in that little dress, and he grabbed a handful. Lucy’s head wobbled backward. She breathed heavily. “And I want cabana boys named Raoul to rub warm, fragrant oil all over me, from head to toe, all over my throat and chest and my legs and arms. I want-”

  Theo pushed the chair back on the deck and it made a loud scraping sound. He grabbed Lucy’s face and kissed her hard, then rose up and placed her on her feet, taking her hand.

  “Where are we going, Theo?”

  “Shh.” He stroked her hair as he led her inside. “The name’s Raoul.”

  Chapter 8

  July

  Office of Doris Lehman, MSW, PhD “But how did you know it was love?”

  Doris shifted in the modern leather and chrome chair and crossed, then recrossed her legs before she answered. “How I came to love Mr. Lehman has very little to do with how you might experience love with Theo.”

  Lucy sighed and kicked off her new strappy little mules. She now wore an entire shoe size smaller than last November, and she’d just gotten her toenails painted a bright pink, her first pedicure since the Clinton administration. “So you’re not going to tell me?”

  “The real question is one that only you can answer, Lucy.” Doris smiled kindly. “So. Are you in love with Theo?”

  “Oh God! I’m completely, utterly, nutso in love with that man! But how do I let go of the rope? How do I loosen my grip and fall into the water if I can’t even see what’s down in there? Piranhas? Sharp rocks? Toxie waste? I don’t even know how deep the water is! I could snap my neck like a twig!”

  Doris raised an eyebrow. “That was quite a metaphor.”

  Lucy glared at the kimono kittens on the paper screen and swore she heard them tittering and snickering at her outburst. She was really starting to hate those little trollops.

  “Actually, Doris, I was hoping this is where you tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do with my life!”

  Lucy coul
d hardly believe it, but Doris got up out of the therapist’s chair, walked over to the love seat, sat down right next to her, and hugged her tight.

  It felt nice. It felt safe. And Doris smelled like she’d just strolled out of the Hermes boutique in Bal Harbor.

  “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Lucy shook her head vehemently and wailed, “He keeps asking me to tell him what happened to me ten years ago!”

  “Here, sweetheart.” Doris shoved a tissue into Lucy’s cupped hands, and Lucy realized that lately people seemed to be forever fetching paper goods in her company. She blew her nose and straightened up a little.

  “I’d rather die than tell Theo Redmond about the Taco Bowl incident.”

  “Why does telling him the truth frighten you so?”

  “Because if he knows, that’s how he’ll see me! In his mind, I won’t be me anymore. I’ll just be the fattest Pitt State coed Brad Zirkle could find to have sex with!”

  “Lucy-”

  “I’ll be the ugly chick Zirkle used to break his rash-ing slump!”

  “Do you really think-”

  “I’ll be that pathetic porker everyone felt sorry for when the shit hit the fan and the ESPN camera crews descended on campus and people started getting expelled and fired! And I don’t want Theo to see me that way! I can’t let him! I don’t want him to know I was the Pitt State Slump Buster!”

  “He already knows who you are, Lucy.”

  She shook her head.

  “Perhaps Theo would prefer to form his own opinion based on the truth. Maybe he can handle it without running away.”

  Lucy let loose with a loud sob.

  “Theo has spent seven months getting to know you. This part of your past won’t make him love you any less than he does.”

  Lucy stopped crying and raised her head to stare at Doris. “Love me?” She blinked and blew her nose. “You think he loves me?”

  Doris smiled sweetly. “You know, Lucy, in addition to my weekly sessions with you, I’ve also grown to know Theo the way the rest of this city has. I see him with you on TV. I hear what he says and the way he says it. I notice the way he looks at you.”

  Lucy sat up straight.

  “He cares very much for you, Lucy.”

  “I know he does.”

  “He deserves to know.” Doris loosened her hug and stroked Lucy’s hair. “When the time is right, you might consider telling Theo that you’ve been in love with him for a long time now.”

  Lucy sniffed. “And I’m supposed to do this without Milk Duds? As if!”

  Doris laughed. “You know, being true to yourself takes courage, Lucy. Great joy always requires great risk, and even effort.”

  “Yeah. OK. But I’ve always been more of a drive-through person.”

  “Now, to answer your initial question, it felt like someone zapped me with an electric cattle prod.”

  Lucy wasn’t sure how her therapist got from joy to animal husbandry techniques but figured it might be worth clarifying. “What in the world are you talking about, Doris?”

  She smiled and patted Lucy’s knee. “Every time I saw Irving-Mr. Lehman-it was like I’d been struck by a very friendly little bolt of lightning and the atmosphere became clearer in the aftermath.”

  “Oh.” Lucy was following her just fine now.

  “You’ll know when the time is right to tell Theo. You’ll feel it.”

  She imagined it would feel an awful lot like indigestion.

  Journal Entry July 11

  Breakfast: 1/2 grapefruit; 2 egg whites, scrambled; 1/2 whole wheat bagel

  Lunch: 3 oz tuna; 1 tbsp light mayo; 1 apple; 3 Ry-Krisp

  Diner: 3 oz sirloin; 1 small baked potato; 1 tbsp light butter; 1 c steamed cauliflower

  Snack: 1 light yogurt; 1 c strawberries

  Affirmation for Today:

  Light mayonnaise is like masturbation-it approximates the real thing but leaves you unfulfilled, ultimately leading to fantasies about diving face-first into a big-ass jar of the real stuff.

  Veronica poked her head into Lucy’s office. “I’ve answered two crates of fan mail today, but I’m running out of storage room. Any suggestions?”

  Lucy groaned. “None.”

  “Oh. And there’s another package for you out front. A big one. You want me to open it?”

  The anonymous delivery of junk food in bulk had become so commonplace that Lucy no longer even bothered mentioning it to Theo. Malomars. Oreos. Fritos. There was even a shipment of frozen Snickers bars on dry ice. Somebody with a significant disposable income thought it was funny to torture her like this.

  “Sure. Go ahead and open it.”

  “You don’t want to know what’s in it, like usual, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Veronica left and Lucy sat patiently at her desk, waiting. Eventually, her assistant returned, giving her a sympathetic nod.

  “Frozen stuffed pizzas shipped directly from the original Pizzeria Uno in Chicago.”

  Lucy’s heart stopped. “People can be so sick and twisted,” she hissed.

  “Sausage.”

  “I’m not strong enough for this.”

  “It’s OK, Lucy. I’ll put them in Stephan’s office. He’s the one who’s been taking most of this stuff home anyway.”

  “You like the dress?” Lucy was standing toward the entrance of the grand ballroom as the guests began to filter in. Tyson had been one of the first to arrive, and he’d come with Lola, who was already hitting on the bartender.

  “Not my style, to be honest.”

  “Oh really?” Lucy would have been offended if it weren’t for the glint in Tyson’s eye.

  “No.” He shook his head, his eyes still scanning every detail of the item of clothing in question. “That’s the kind of dress that belongs on the floor, all wrinkled up, with the zipper broken and the sleeves torn. That dress isn’t right for you at all. In fact, I think you should take it off right now.”

  Tyson had remained her friend-her flirtatious, fun friend-even though they hadn’t dated since she returned from Tampa. He’d seemed disappointed when she told him she couldn’t keep seeing him, but he’d never lost that gleam in his eye or that smile for her. Tyson’s playful attention made her feel appreciated, even while she wrestled with the more serious feelings she had for Theo.

  Lucy was laughing when Theo arrived between her mother and father. The entire arrangement felt like a nonsensical wedding march-she stood with a guy she used to date waiting to receive her beloved, who was being escorted by her parents.

  It briefly registered that her mother looked smashing in a shimmering blue dress and her father remarkably put-together in his rented tux; then Lucy’s eyes returned to the real sensory delicacy at hand.

  Seeing Theo Redmond in a white dinner jacket was like eating a DoveBar in an outdoor Jacuzzi while listening to Mozart and gazing at the aurora borealis-almost too many pleasures going on at once for the brain to absorb. His golden skin and sun-touched hair, his clear blue eyes, that killer smile, tall and lean and knock-you-on-your-ass delicious, all set in a framework of starched white dress shirt, austere black bow tie, creamy suit jacket…

  “My, my, my.”

  “Stay strong, Lucy.” Tyson shook his head. “He’s just a man-puts his jockstrap on like all the rest of us.”

  She blew out air and looked up at Tyson. “Must we discuss jockstraps tonight? I’m all dressed up and nowhere near the gym and I’d much rather just gawk at Theo.”

  Tyson laughed. “You’re a goner, aren’t you, Lucy? You really love Redmond.”

  Lucy was saved as Tyson’s gaze wandered toward the ballroom entrance, his champagne glass hovering in midair. “Now who is that little lady?”

  Lucy sought out the object of Tyson’s inquiry. “Oh. That’s Veronica, my assistant. Be gentle with her.

  I need her able-bodied and alert at the office on Monday.“

  “The able-bodied part�
��s not going to be a problem,” he said, already moving away and toward Veronica.

  Buddy came in next, right behind Theo, along with Dan and Gia. Mary Fran was on their heels-without Keith. Lucy hadn’t actually seen her brother-in-law since Holden’s baptism and was starting to think that Mary Fran had killed him and disposed of his body in the crawl space of their lovely redbrick Georgian in Buckhead. She’d have to remember to ask.

  Then Stephan sauntered in with Carolina Buendia and John Weaver, who looked exactly as they did on the WakeUp Miami set, and it was obvious that the party was indeed getting started.

  He’d picked a hell of a time to have this epiphany, but there it was, just a few feet away in the grand ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. It was Lucy, breathtaking in that bare hint of a dress, and he was sure this would soon be one of the defining moments of his life. A moment that would change everything.

  Theo put one foot in front of the other, his eyes on hers, and it all rushed into him-every other defining moment in his thirty-two years on the planet.

  His brother’s birth had been hard on his mom. Brian Joseph Redmond was born after eighteen hours of labor, and the doctors whisked him away and came back to explain to his distraught family that the baby had Down syndrome. Theo was just sixteen, but in that instant he went from the focus of his parents’ lives to their peer, an independent and grown person they relied on for help.

  He’d suddenly become his father’s friend and ally, his mother’s confidant, and a big brother to a beautiful and perplexing child.

  Theo had observed how the soft-spoken doctor comforted his mom, held her hand, and gently told her the truth about Buddy. Immediately Theo knew that’s what he was meant to do with his own life. He wanted a job that was real, important, healing. He wanted that mix of human connection and hard science. He wanted to be a doctor. Theo cornered the physician in the hallway afterward, talked to him for a good half hour, and his mind was made up. Everything he did after that was done in pursuit of that goal.

  Another defining moment came when the dean of the med school came for Theo in the middle of assisting with a routine appendectomy. As Theo followed him into the hallway outside the operating suite, he already felt the weight of tragedy hanging over him-he just didn’t know who was dead or how it had happened. When the dean put his hands on Theo’s shoulders and said the words, “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this…” everything changed again.